Ben Fogle's country travels: in search of a decent cuppa

A lot of work goes into creating Britain's beloved tea, finds Ben Fogle.

It amazes me that we complain that you’ll never find a good cuppa overseas, when quite obviously all the tea comes from overseas.

This week I spent a morning with the master tea taster of a well-known tea brand who has the task of tasting 600 teas each day. Perhaps unsurprisingly, tea tasting is very similar to wine tasting. The tea is inhaled to the back of the mouth, across the taste buds, before a swill and a spit into a bucket.

In one morning, he took me on a journey of the globe with tea. First stop was east Africa: here I compared tea from the same region but two different seasons. Next stop was India, followed by Sri Lanka and then Argentina.

It transpires that Argentina’s tea is most popular for iced tea. China’s was the most fragrant, while the African autumn variety was bitter. Strangest of all was the Indonesian tea that tasted of smoke and fire, even though it had grown naturally.

On my real travels, I have been fortunate to visit tea plantations as far afield as St Helena, the Azores and Sri Lanka, but there was something special about visiting the magician’s cave where the teas are blended to suit Britain’s tastes.

Everything down to the shape and material of the tea bag and the size of the loose leaves has been subjected to years of scientific research. Water maketh tea, and I was shown the difference between tea with hard water and soft water. It’s soft water all the way for me.

As for the 600 tastes of tea per day, they are tiny samples sent in from across the world from tea auctions. The master taster will try each one and place a bid accordingly.

A heavy cold or blocked sinuses could cost a tea producer dearly. And what does the man who tastes tea all day for a living drink for his breaks? By my estimation, he has sampled nearly 200,000 a year – five and a half million teas so far.

What astonishes me is the work that goes into producing this quintessential part of British life. It is the blend that makes a cup unique.

Tea varies in taste throughout the year, so ensuring a blend has a consistent flavour requires a complex puzzle of constantly changing varieties and producers.

Did you know that it was traditionally drunk black? Milk was only added to distil and dilute the temperature and prevent the bone china from cracking. For future reference, mine’s white. I’ll have one if you’re offering.